Meeting Abstract
The geographic range of the Western Fence Lizard Sceloporus occidentalis covers 15° of latitude, nearly 1500 meters in elevation, and occupies a broad range of biomes. We asked whether physiological adaptation to local conditions are necessary for success across such a large geographic range. On a smaller geographic scale, a single subspecies of S. occidentalis comprises populations from three distinctly different climate zones in the state of Washington: pine-oak woodland in the inland south, pine-fir forest in the North Cascades, and forest edge along the Salish Sea coast. We hypothesized that lizards from the cool coastal locale would show elevated metabolic rates relative to the other sites to accommodate the cooler daily temperatures and shorter activity season. We compared the temperature-dependent resting metabolism at body temperatures of 20, 28 and 36°C among the three populations, tentatively supporting our hypothesis.
